His eyes dropped to her mouth. Lingered. Moved lower. Came all the way back up. Like he was deciding where to start if she let him.
“Which part?” he asked.
“The part where we agreed to abstain.”
“We agreed no sex.” He faced her fully. “We didn’t say no proximity.”
She pointed to the offending furniture. “You really think we can sleep in that bed without crossing a line?”
She didn’t even know what she wanted him to say. Her whole body felt like a tripwire.
Rafael stepped closer. “I’m not crossing a line by sleeping beside the woman I’m marrying.”
Her pulse jumped as the room had narrowed to the inch between them. The soft threat of the bed behind her, the fact that no one would interrupt.
“You know I don’t like it when I can’t think,” she muttered.
“Then stop trying to outthink what you feel.” His hand came up, slow enough to ask, sure enough to assume, and his thumb brushed the underside of her jaw. “Distance isn’t helping either of us. And it’s the only thing here that’s hurting you.”
The air between them crackled.
“So we’re going to enjoy this weekend,” he continued, other hand settling at her waist. “And we’re going to sleep in the same bed. You feel worse when I’m not there.”
It was unfair how true that was. Her thighs squeezed together without warning, her breath catching as his touch tightened by a fraction, as if he’d felt it too.
He waited, patient in the way that wasn’t patience at all.
She exhaled. “Fine.”
Bea paused at the top of the terrace steps, one hand on the stone rail. Half a dozen bodies already dotted through the pool,splashing and calling to one another. In the UR, summer liked to linger, which made swimming possible even with dinnertime creeping closer.
She tugged once at the waistband of her board shorts. She’d almost left them off. Had stood in the bathroom debating it like it was a moral dilemma. Georgina, Isabel, and Naomi were exactly as expected in their bikinis. The men were shirtless, confidence worn as easily as skin.
She spotted Lillian floating past on an oversized flamingo. Since it wasn’t peak UV hour, she’d left off her rashguard and wore a one-piece swimsuit, but she also had board shorts on. Bea sighed, wanting to thump her chest in solidarity. Good old Lils.
“Bey!” Georgie called. “What took you so long?”
Courage. Mental preparation. She called back: “Wardrobe.”
She started down the steps. Rafael was at the edge closest to the house, one knee bent, forearm hooked behind him. Sun lit up the long lines of his body—tanned, lean, impossible to ignore. His eyes tracked her. Her knees gave a traitorous little wobble but she forced them to keep moving.
For half a second she considered detouring toward Isabel, who was lounging on a pool bed across the way. Not because she really wanted the separation, but because denying Rafael closeness had become a perverse kind of survival reflex. Except…it had been weeks since she’d seen that much of him, and what shereallywanted to do was sit in his lap.
So of course she did the thing which made zero sense and hovered awkwardly in the middle.
“Game time,” Laurent announced, dragging a hand through his dark blond hair, droplets scattering in the late sun.
Groans and protests rose at once.
“No,” Isabel said. “Whatever it is, no.”
“Relax,” Laurent replied. “It’s an easy one. Piggyback race in the shallow end. One carrier, one rider.”
Georgina gasped. “Oh, Ilovethis game.”
Hunter grinned. “You would.”
“Everyone in?”
